The subject matter disclosed herein relates to electrical distribution equipment and, more particularly, to circuit breaker power controls.
Conventional electrical distribution equipment generally includes one or more circuit breakers, and often includes a plurality of circuit breakers housed in drawout units in switchgear housings and other electrical equipment. Such circuit breakers include trip unit devices that provide protection for cables, motors and other loads by measuring electrical current and simulating the heating of said cables, motors and loads. In most cases the trip unit has a front LCD display and keypad and/or buttons. The trip unit uses the LCD screen and keypad buttons to set multiple parameters. Some examples of such parameters are: view protection levels, time of trip delays, and enabling and disabling trips such as ground fault. Older trip units require a battery button on the keypad to enable the processor to turn on the LCD display when there is no external power on the trip unit.
There are several disadvantages associated with the conventional circuit breaker trip units. One disadvantage is that such trip unit keypads require a separate battery button to connect the battery to the keypad to power the keypad when external power sources are not available. This feature introduces the risk of excess or unnecessary power consumption by the keypad and/or other components of the trip unit controller, which in turn negatively affects battery life.